Rose Tyler,-
by fangirlingingeneralidk
Summary: AU in which "The Runaway Bride" happens after s3 instead; the Doctor is left alone after "Doomsday" without Donna interrupting.
1. After Bad Wolf Bay

The transmission cut off. He had not finished his sentence.

"Rose Tyler," that was all he had gotten out before the hologram faded, and now he could never say it to her, never see her again to tell her what so desperately needed to be told.

His mouth was still open to deliver the next word, and as he shut it the tears began. He had held them back for her sake, but it didn't matter now; she couldn't see him now, couldn't see him ever again.

He pressed his lips together to hold in a scream. Looking down, he closed his eyes. Unconsciously he began to rock back and forth on the spot. His fingers clutched at his shirtsleeves just to have something to hold onto. _Why hadn't he said it?_

He staggered forward and clutched at the TARDIS controls to steady himself. Tears ran into his mouth, but all he could taste were the words left unsaid.

"I love you," he blurted, and the relief of releasing them was marred by the knowledge that she would never hear him say it.

"I love you," he repeated, and he sank to his knees. He could not stand any longer. "Oh god, I love you."

Feebly, he pounded a fist against the console. "I love you, I love you, I love you…"

Each statement was punctuated by a blow to the console. "I love you-" _bang-_ "I love you-" _bang-_ "I love you."

He swiped angrily at his wet face, but the tears kept coming and so he succumbed to their flow and let them drip onto his suit unheeded. What was the point? There was no one to see.

"I love you," he whispered, wishing he could send the words across universes to her, wishing he could send _himself_ to her.

 _Why hadn't he said it?_

Why had he never told her before, when he had the chance? There had been untold opportunities, yet he had failed to take advantage of them.

None, however, were so colossal as this. The last time he would ever see her and he had not managed to get the words out in time.

Time. The word was a cruel joke. What good was a time machine if you couldn't undo your mistakes?

"I love you," he said hoarsely, and then he shouted it. "I love you!" But the words only echoed around the TARDIS and it just emphasized how very empty it was in there, and how very alone he was.

Always alone. Every time he found someone, they left him somehow. He cared too much, that was his problem. It _hurt_ , and he couldn't stop. If he didn't care, he would never hurt.

And this, this hurt so badly he thought he would die from the pain of it. But that wasn't right; he wouldn't die, because that's not how he worked. The curse of the TIme Lords: regeneration. He wouldn't die. He would become someone new; he would _forget_ her, and that was a thought that could not be borne.

He had managed it last time, had clung to his previous self enough that not much had changed between them, but she had still been with him then.

And now she wasn't.

It was still beginning to sink in, what this meant. She was gone where he could never reach her again.

In a sick, horrible way it would have been better if she were dead. Instead this way he knew he would forever cling to hope-stupid, foolish hope-that it would be alright somehow, that she would find a way to come back for him or that he could get the TARDIS back to her side of the rift, without breaking the universe.

 _The universe,_ he thought in a fit of fury, _is not worth this._

"I love you," he said again, just so he would remember how to say the words if the impossible ever happened. "I love you."

The impossible, combined with blind irrational helpless hope, was probably the real reason he shied away from the idea of regeneration. Quite aside from his own psychological changes, there was her reaction. His transition to his current body, he remembered, had taken some getting used to. It had been a little while before she had come to accept that he was the same Doctor he had been.

Except he wasn't, not really. His feelings for her hadn't changed, but his personality, his flavor-he was a different _variety_ Doctor than the one who had grabbed her hand in a shop basement and whispered _Run_.

He'd like to think he was better, and if he was, it was due to her. She was the bedrock that had stabilized him through his depression and PTSD after the TIme War and the choice he'd had to make to end it. She had pulled him through that, and though he doubted he could ever forget what he'd done, she had reminded him that he could go on. She had molded him into a better man, a less bitter person.

She had made him, and now she had left him.

The void of space had never seemed so empty. The TARDIS sat in what had been the orbit around a sun he had used up to send the message he hadn't completed. A waste, like so much of his effort. So often he tried to save someone who couldn't be saved, to help where no help could be given. It was exhausting, and he was tired of it.

He sat for a long, long time. It was difficult to tell how time passes in the TARDIS, but he could have sat there until the end of the world and felt no difference; his world had already gone.

He was on the floor, sagging against the seat at the controls of the only constant in his life. The TARDIS had been there for him when nothing and no one else had.

But so had she, and if she could leave, nothing could be depended on. It was just him; it was always just him. But he didn't want it to be that way.

Usually he pitied humans for their single-heart cardiac system; now he envied them. Although he knew of course that the heart is not the true center of emotion, the ache in his chest was all too real, and it felt impossible that his hearts were not actually tearing in half.

"I love you," he choked out once more, through a throat clogged with tears. "I love you and I should have said it, why didn't I say it, _why_?"

He doubled over next to the chair. His fists beat at the floor. The TARDIS hummed comfortingly, but he was deaf to it. All he could see was her face, the last image of her he had seen before the last gap had closed. She had looked devastated, and it hurt him even more to know it was he who had hurt her so.

But he was glad at least that he had not broken down in front of her, because he knew that just as her pain hurt him, his would have hurt her. At least he had spared giving her that pain as well.

Yet the effort of avoiding tears of his own had required him to adopt a flippancy he did not feel. It had made him make jokes and waste their precious time. If he hadn't… If he had responded to her "I love you" in kind immediately, instead of trying to be _funny_ …

 _If only, if only_ … He berated himself.

Why had he found it so difficult to say? He was having no difficulty now- and he said it again, to dig the barb deeper: "I love you. Rose Tyler, I love you. I love you. I love you..."

His voice gave out just as his legs had and he trailed off. He swallowed. His mouth was dry, but he could not fathom getting up to get a drink. He was tired beyond belief, but if he slept he would only dream of her, and he couldn't bear the thought of waking up to a reality without her by his side.

But at the thought of physical needs his stomach mutinied and demanded he get food before he collapsed. Reluctantly, he stood on shaky legs and wandered the TARDIS corridors until they led him someplace like a kitchen. He would not leave the TARDIS, would not go to Earth, because if he were around people he would become attached. Attachments ended painfully.

As he ate without tasting a thing he toyed with the idea of drinking. Time Lords were impervious to alcohol, but not if there were ginger in the drink, which is why he deliberately kept the ginger on hand near the drinks.

But did he want to get drunk? Not really. The pain would go away, but only temporarily, and he would only get hungover as well as heartbroken.

So instead he fixed himself some tea and warmed his hands around the mug as he fought in vain to not think about Jackie's tea awakening him after regeneration to fight off the Sycorax.

Thinking of Jackie, though, reminded him that Rose wasn't alone on the other side; she had her family. She even had her father, something she'd never had on this side. And as much as Jackie and the Doctor liked bickering with one another, he had to admit she was a good mum to Rose. Even Mickey would take care of her for him. She'd have a new brother soon. She would be happy without him, eventually.

He didn;t know if the same could be said of him, and he didn't know if he'd want it to be.

He drained the rest of the cup in one final gulp, but he couldn't make himself get up to put the cup away. He sat at the table, hands still wrapped around the empty mug, staring at nothing in particular. Numb.

Was this how it was always going to be? Would he sit here until he regenerated, over and over until he died (he only had two left in him) or forgot why he was sitting there?

She wouldn't want that for him, and he knew it. She would want him to move on, but how could he?

He had gotten no closure. There was no indication of any ending; other than the fact that the rift was closed and she was on the other side, he could fool himself that she was still here, would walk into the room with her tongue between her teeth as she smiled mischievously and asked him to take her somewhere exotic.

There was nothing to prove that she was gone except the terrible pain within him.


	2. Hospitalized

He sat there for too long. Eventually he had to get up. But he found he couldn't stand, could barely move in fact. He could not remember the last time he had eaten anything. Even a Time Lord's body has limits, and in his grief he was pushing himself past them.

He stumbled back through the TARDIS. "Take me to a hospital," he told it; in his half-starved state he would be incapable of operating the controls properly. Luckily the TARDIS understood. As he fell to the ground they soared through the vortex and reappeared in an Earth hospital.

He dragged himself to the TARDIS doors on his hands and knees. He grappled for the door handles and shoved them open. The loss of resistance sent him sprawling out.

The TARDIS had landed in a typically unobtrusive spot to avoid humans noticing its materialization; he seemed to be in some sort of closet or storage space at the end of a small hallway. But he needed to get attention.

So he pulled himself to his feet and, with the help of his hand on the wall, walked along the hall. Although "walk" wasn't a very accurate description; rather he fell forward and caught himself, then repeated the maneuver.

Several times he came crashing down and had to get back up, something he managed only because the wall was there beside him.

It seemed he always needed support, he thought drily. Without a companion he had nearly starved himself to death or regeneration. It had been a mistake to avoid company; he needed people around him.

What had he been thinking? He despised being alone, so he withdrew? And he called himself a genius…

At last the hallway gave out to a wider area, and someone spotted him as he fell without the wall holding him up.

Vaguely, from his facedown position, he heard a call for assistance and moments later felt strong arms lift him onto a stretcher. Soon he would have to explain how he had gotten there and who he was, but for now they- whoever his mysterious rescuers were- contented themselves by making him comfortable in a bed.

He slept and, as predicted, he dreamed of her.

A thousand times he saw her face, in a thousand different expressions- of joy and of fear, of anger and of empathy, of pride and of dismay, of sorrow and of protectiveness, all the things that formed his pink and yellow human.

And a thousand ways he watched her die, his usual nightmare. He was too slow, or he was too far away, or he made a mistake, and she paid for it. He saw her torn apart, disintegrated, blown up, crushed, eaten, suffocated, poisoned, and most often- exterminated. The Daleks took her from him so many times in his dreams that he had often woken and immediately checked on her to reassure himself that she was okay, she was alive, she was with him.

This time when he woke, gasping, he was disoriented. It took him only a second to realize he was not in the TARDIS and a little longer to remember where he was instead. After that he recalled the events that had caused him to end up here, and he sank back into his pillows.

There could be no comfort this time. He had lost her. Although she was alive, she would never again feel the touch of his hand in hers, see the look in his eye as he watched her, hear him laugh from the pure enjoyment of being around her.

Before he could dwell too long on the subject, a nurse came rushing in. "Sir, are you alright?"

"Fine," he mumbled. "Starving, though. Got any fruit? I had an apple in my dressing gown once. Saved the world with a satsuma that day, actually."

"That's nice," she said, dismissing this last bit as ramblings brought on by hunger. "I'll get you something to eat, then, love."

She left. He marveled at the casual use of the word "love." It was peculiar to the British, and he was fascinated that someone he'd never met could so easily throw the word out there.

Love. "What is love?" he mused aloud to the empty room. No answer came, fortunately; he was not _that_ far gone. He continued the lecture nonetheless, which even he had to admit was a bit of a worrying sign, but no matter.

"Scientifically speaking, it's nothing but a mess of hormones. But what sets that off? Do we see any old somebody go by and that's it? Nah. Love is…

"Love is a relationship. Love is effort. Love is a give-and-take, no, a give-and-receive, and it's not always equal because the important thing isn't to be fair but to be right.

"Love begins with emotion, yes, but it continues by choice. If you run at the first sign of trouble, well, hormones won't save that relationship. Love works when you take the time to make it work."

A thousand moments shared. A thousand places visited. A thousand smiles swapped. Love is an exchange, a commitment.

He thought of all they had been through together, he and she, the Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. He had tried to show her the universe. So many beautiful things to see, and there were some bad times in the mix, but the experience only drew them closer together. It gave them stories to recount and it gave them faith in one another that the one would always be there for the other, that theirs was a relationship that would last.

"Love is bittersweet," he said aloud. In the back of his head, he wondered when he had become so philosophical. Then he scoffed at himself- he was the Doctor; waxing poetic on love to himself in a hospital room was typical behavior.

"Bittersweet," he said slowly, and then, "I love you." He wanted to see if the words had changed or if he had changed or if his perception of them had changed.

"It was nothing," replied the nurse, coming back into the room with a tray of food. "Just doing my job."

"Oh! I, er, didn't see you there," he stammered. Possibly he was blushing.

"No worries, only joking," she said cheerfully, setting down the tray in front of him. "Eat up, but not too fast. It's been a while since you've eaten, and you don't want to overdo it."

He thanked her and she went on her way. He remained in the hospital for the night. If he dreamed again, he did not remember any of it by the time he woke up.

By which point the authorities had been alerted regarding his unexplained presence. They demanded ID; he showed them the psychic paper, which did its job as usual, but then they wanted to know why he was there.

"Er, not quite sure how I got in, but I know what happened before that to put me in this state."

"Well?"

He paused. "Lost someone close to me. Had no one to remind me to take care of myself. Sort of forgot to eat for a bit."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Smith-" the bedside manner here was abysmal- "but if you can't take care of yourself alone, is there anywhere we can release you to when you're well? That is to say, do you have anyone to watch over you, so to speak? Perhaps a family member?"

"No family," he said shortly.

"A friend, then?"

"Gone. All gone." A trace of bitterness was unavoidable.

The doctor-with-a-lowercase-d looked stumped. "Well, I suppose you can stay here until you're well enough to look after yourself."

Several days later- several sleepless nights later- several thousand minutes without her later, he was feeling much better, physically speaking. He was afraid to examine his emotional state.

But that day something peculiar happened. A Dr. Jones appeared to recognize him- "from this morning," she said. Yet he had not left his bed that day. Which suggested time travel. Why?

For the rest of the day, he was on edge, so he wasn't surprised when it started raining upward. It was about time.


	3. Recap

It had been nearly 2 years since the rift had closed. Martha had left him. Jack had his own group of friends.

The Master was dead.

The only other Time Lord left, gone forever. He had refused regeneration. The Doctor had never known such a thing to happen. Certainly nobody he knew of on Gallifrey had done it.

And now the Doctor was alone once more. Always, always alone. Everyone he'd found after the Time War kept leaving him.

"I win," the Master had whispered. And he had- all he'd wanted was to cause the Doctor pain. Even his last words. "Will the drums stop?"

Because he hadn't always been this way. They'd grown up together, gone to the Academy together and gone on adventures together. Until the drums had stolen him.

The Doctor didn't miss the man the Master had grown to be and had died as. He missed the boy he had once known, the boy who could've been. The boy he'd failed to save.

This adventure, this Year That Never Was, had brought nothing but anguish to him. He'd thought he could redeem the Master- show him a new way of life.

But he had failed. The Master was dead and the Doctor was once more the last of the Time Lords. Alone, alone, alone.

Then he'd met Donna, after Martha left for UNIT. He saw her lose her fiancé and he knew the pain of grief and of betrayal by someone you were once close with.

And on their latest adventure, a trip to Shan Shen, she had revisited and changed a moment he preferred not to think about- the few seconds standing over the Racnoss and thinking about letting the water continue.

About letting it take him with it, because what did he have left to stay for? He was the last of his kind and all he could do was be left behind. He felt maybe it was time for him to do the leaving.

Donna had stopped him, but what if she hadn't? He didn't want to think about it.

Fortunately she had news to distract him quite effectively: _Bad Wolf_.

He knew very well what that should mean, but how could it? The one person it could refer to was beyond reach.

Yet Donna's description, and those 2 words...

And here again was that stupid impossible hope, burning his hearts and searing his mind like regeneration. Try as he might he could not push away the thoughts of _maybe_ and _what_ _if_ and _if only_...

Hope had a sour taste in his mouth because he knew it couldn't last long. Hope always died eventually, but the thing wouldn't stay dead; it returned in a new form and fought back harder. It sounded like him.

He thought of Pandora's Box. Hope was also the last one left, saving people from despair. No wonder he was so plagued by hope; birds of a feather and so on.

If he could see her again, if he could talk to her even for a second, he knew exactly what he'd say. How could he not?

If she was returning, really returning... But she couldn't, so there was no point in thinking about it.

Not that that stopped him from doing so. From the moment he first had made the connection, he could not put her out of his mind.

Rose was coming back. He wanted to believe it, wanted it so badly it scared him. Nothing he wanted this badly ever ended well.

Even as a human he'd been torn away from the only woman he wanted, when he'd used the fob watch to disguise himself. Some things, it seemed, were fated to happen to him in every version of him.

And it wasn't fair. He usually tried to avoid thoughts like that, because what good would they do? Nothing would change just because he resented it. And they bordered on the tricky edge of belief in a higher power orchestrating his life, which he was always hesitant about. The one thing the Doctor would always believe in, as he'd told the would-be Satan on that impossible planet, was Rose Tyler. So he didn't know why he should demand things be "fair," but he couldn't accept that they were. It couldn't be.

His whole life, 900 years of travelling through time and space, he'd been helping people. Doing good throughout the galaxies. He'd saved billions of lives. Yes, he'd also ended some, but he didn't want to be a killer. He wanted to heal the world, to be a doctor- the ultimate doctor, _the_ Doctor.

And he had, he was. He wanted to be good, to leave behind the atrocities he'd seen and committed. His every action was meant to help, so why should karma fail him so badly? Why did he deserve all this pain?

But maybe that could soon end. Rose would come back if it were even remotely possible, and she would bring him into better times, a better him. She'd fix him like she always did.

Only now did it hit him what her reappearance would mean. If Rose was able to cross between universes, everything was breaking down.

The universe- no, reality itself- was in danger. But he couldn't help being excited nonetheless.

"Isn't that good?" Donna asked, and he couldn't hold back his smile.

"Yeah."


End file.
